Best Budget TVs 2011

Not everyone can afford the premium prices that the latest top-end
TVs demand. So, if the models in our recent
Best 3D TVs of 2011 round-up are out of your reach, read on.

A few weeks ago we tested Sony’s end-of-range
32EX403, and found it to be a quite massive bargain thanks to the way its
price had been gradually reduced since it first appeared in 2010. This got us to
thinking that there might be plenty of other bargains out there too. And
indeed, it didn’t take much searching at all to find all manner of crazy TV
deals littering the Internet. So, if the models in our recent
Best 3D TVs of 2011 round-up are out of your reach, here - with a polite reminder that these deals
are only likely to be available for a reasonably short time - are the top six
bargain TVs our research managed to uncover at the time of writing...

This is the second Samsung TV featured here, but we make no
apologies whatsoever for including it. For as with its plasma sets, the more
Samsung seems to have become focused on its edge LED flagship TVs, the better
the bargains seem to get with its ‘ordinary’ CCFL LCD TVs.

Not that the 40in LE40C650 is in actuality remotely ordinary. In
fact, despite its knockdown price it features a Freeview HD tuner, Samsung’s
Internet@TV online service (including the BBC iPlayer, Twitter, LoveFilm,
Facebook and YouTube), extensive multimedia playback from USB or DLNA PCs, a
really pretty design (featuring subtle injections of colour on some variations)
and some of the best picture quality ever seen from a ‘straight’ LCD TV. Black
levels, in particular, are terrific for such an affordable CCFL LCD TV.

The set doesn’t have any 3D capabilities, but if this doesn’t matter
to you then we’d suggest that the LE40C650 is where the smart money should be
heading right now - until they’ve all sold out, anyway - rather than in the
direction of Samsung’s edge LED models.

We could barely believe our eyes when we found this now-venerable
Sony set still widely available. After all, we reviewed it way back in March
2010 - so long ago, in fact, that it was then the very first Freeview HD TV
we’d seen! Presumably the 40EX503’s continued existence is down to persistent
demand created by the fact that it’s rather excellent - one of Sony’s most
accomplished combinations of value, functionality and performance.

It doesn’t have 3D - no bad thing, actually, judging by Sony’s past issues
with 3D playback - but otherwise it’s surprisingly well equipped for its money,
with its Freeview HD tuner being joined by Sony’s still-impressive Bravia
Internet Video system (complete with the BBC iPlayer and Demand 5 catch up
services), 100Hz processing, and Sony’s Bravia Engine 3 processing.

Its pictures are very impressive for a CCFL TV too, thanks in
particular to some excellent sharpness with HD, good upscaling of standard
definition, and pleasingly uniform and reasonably deep black levels.

The £585 deal shown here includes a free 5-year warranty if you buy
the set in-store before June 30th, plus you can get better prices still - below
£500 from richersounds.com, in fact - if you also trade in your current TV.

Few sets better exemplify the success of Toshiba’s focus on the
budget end of the TV market over the past couple of years than this excellent-value,
still-widely-available 37in 2010 model. Obviously its main appeal is the simple
fact that it’s a 37in LCD TV that only costs £350. But this certainly isn’t our
sole reason for including it in our collection of top bargain TVs. In fact, the
really key thing about the 37RV753 is that as well as being cheap, it’s
actually quite good!

Pictures are bright, colourful yet also pretty rich in contrast by
CCFL LCD standards, delivering black levels that are at least good enough to
look natural during all but the very darkest of scenes.

Its features are a cut above the budget norm too, especially the
inclusion of a Freeview HD tuner and some (slightly limited but still
impressive for this price point) DLNA and USB multimedia playback facilities.

We rated this set a 9 for value when we reviewed it in October with
a £430 price tag, so you can comfortably nudge this mark up to a 10 or, heck,
even an 11, now it’s broken the £350 price level.